1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of computer networks, and, in particular, to the connection between a user device and a content server. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved method and system for providing browser based functions in a web page to provide accessibility to that web page to a disabled client user.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet comprises a vast network of heterogenous computers and sub-networks all communicating together to allow for global exchange of information. The World Wide Web (WWW) is one of the more popular information services on the Internet. The WWW uses browser software to decipher HyperText links to other documents or files located on remote computers, all of which are connected to the Internet. Browsers provide a user-friendly interface that allows users to easily navigate from site to site or file to file around the Internet. Using a browser, a user can access information in the form of text, audio, video, still pictures and related multimedia stored on remote computers or content servers.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the Internet and other devices that may be used to access the Internet. A client device 10, such as a desktop computer, laptop computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), onboard vehicle computer, cellular telephone, etc., sends a request for a Web site, typically through a browser application program using HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to send the request through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 12. ISP 12 establishes a link to an Internet 14, which then passes the HTTP request to a content server 16. This request is forwarded to a content provider 18 that is typically a web page addressed by a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI) such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
The response from client device 16 is typically in the language of HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which is the standard language for generating documents on the World Wide Web (WWW). HTML defines the structure and layout of a web document by using a variety of tag commands inserted in the document to specify how the document, or portion of the document, should be formatted. The response from content provider 18 is routed back through content server 16, Internet 14, and ISP 12 to client device 10.
A major problem for the Internet relates to providing access to web pages to handicapped users, including the visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically handicapped. Such accessibility primarily consists of transforming the style of information received from a web page, such as changing print font sizes or converting written text to aural speech for the visually impaired. While some content servers 16 have transcoding functions, these are typically limited to select content providers 18 served by that content server 16. While the content web page may be transformed by the content provider 18, the function buttons of the browser on the client device 10 remain outside the viewed web page, and therefore are not transformed. For example, while the web page may be magnified so that a user with limited vision can see the content of the page, the control buttons in the frame around the view web page remains unmagnified, and so the user is still unable to see these browser control buttons. Magnifying all browser buttons is not practical due to space limitations on the viewing screen.
Another problem found in accessibility prior art relates to the process of transcoding content from content provider 18 to a format that is recognizable by the hardware/software of a particular client device 10. Typically, a response from a web page is conventionally formatted via standard page description language such as HTML, which contains text and can reference graphics, sound, animation and video data. If client device 10 is a pervasive device, such as a PDA, smart phone, wearable computer, etc., it typically must communicate in a non-HTML language, and usually through a dedicated ISP 12. The dedicated ISP 12 directs the request from the pervasive device to a special URL, typically sub-defined by content server 16 or content provider 18, to reply with the appropriate response in the appropriate language, such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for handheld wireless devices such as mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smart phones and communicators. Alternatively, ISP 12 may have the ability to transcode an HTML response from a content provider 18, but this ability has historically been limited to a limited predefined number of content providers. Thus accessibility requires not only transcoding of content by changing font size, background color, etc. for a particular handicapped user, the transcoded content needs to be understandable by the particular type of client device 10 being used.
It should therefore be apparent that there exists a need for a means and method of providing browser-based function control buttons, form text fields and other browser-based functions integral with a content web page, such that both the browser controls and the web page can be transformed and manipulated together for accessibility. These browser functions may include, but are not limited to, forward, back, page reload, user settings, bookmarks and history list. Such a system should also include the ability to transcode the content into a format readable by different client devices 10 that the user may use. It would further be desirable to devise a computer program product wherein such a method may be performed on a computer system. In addition, it would be desirable to devise a proxy machine having the ability to provide these transformation applications and optionally transcode responses from a content provider 18 to a client device 10 according to user-defined preferences for accessibility.